RTCA/DO-254 “Design Assurance Guidance for Airborne Electronic Hardware” is a recent standard that is currently being enforced by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA), and other worldwide aviation certification agencies. The purpose of DO-254 is to ensure the safety of in-flight hardware. All FPGA (or ASIC) devices that go in systems that fly must now adhere to the DO-254 standard. The stringency of the process is dictated by the design assurance level (DAL, or safety rating) of the end system, levels A (highest) through E (lowest).

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Requirements are handed down to the component from the system level, and captured as part of the “Requirements Capture” phase of DO-254 flows. The ability to completely trace and manage design requirements from specification through implementation is beneficial to all projects and mandatory for DO-254 compliance. Mentor Graphics solution for requirements traceability, ReqTracer™, links, manages and tracks hardware requirements from multiple sources throughout the design process, provides easy documentation and reports at any stage, and manages the impact of requirement changes.

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A key part of any design flow, Mentor offers a design creation solution that is highly tuned to the needs of DO-254 projects. With its features for RTL editing, code checking, and reuse assurance, its ability to produce design artifacts and web-based review/audit sites, along with its links to configuration management tools and other design tools in the flow, HDL Designer™ can provide a productive framework for DO-254 and other requirements-based design projects.

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Synthesis is a transformation of the design, and ensuring this process is done as safely as possible is a high priority for safety-critical and DO-254 flows. For FPGA designers, Precision Synthesis® offers “safer” vendor-independent synthesis. Precision ensures reliable design operation with safe FSM encoding and radiation-hardened device support, while providing advanced optimization and award-winning analysis to meet aggressive performance and area goals.

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Verifying that the device performs its intended function (and does not do anything unintended) is a crucial part of DO-254 flows. From the traditional favorite simulator ModelSim®, to the advanced verification platform of Questa®, Mentor's industry-leading advanced verification solution supports even the most complex designs, with requirements-based verification management and unified coverage database to meet both your DO-254 compliance and business goals.

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Mentor Consulting has extensive experience helping companies achieve DO-254 compliance with hands-on services to accelerate success and reduce risk, especially in the areas of new verification methods and testbench creation. Our consultants are experts in SystemVerilog-based verification using Mentor's OVM/AVM methodology and advanced verification tool suite. Mentor Consulting works directly with your design and verification teams to assess their verification requirements, architect a verification environment specifically-suited to meeting those requirements, and help you implement a verification solution along with the planning and management necessary for first-pass success.

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